


nothing beside remains

by wreckageofstars



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: (and has a bad time r i p), AU premise on from Episode 8, Action, Angst, Cyber Wars, Dark, Drama, Family, Gen, Jack is trying his best okay, The Doctor doesn't give up the cyberium, The Timeless Children spoilers YES i worked it in somehow, The cyberium is sentient and also kind of an asshole, but not like awful dark just normal dark, s12 spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-05
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-01 05:21:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23019997
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wreckageofstars/pseuds/wreckageofstars
Summary: It takes him years and years and years, but he always finds her, eventually.[Or: the Doctor makes a different choice, all those years ago on Lake Geneva, and lives with the consequences.]
Relationships: Thirteenth Doctor & Jack Harkness
Comments: 33
Kudos: 130





	1. i.

“You can’t come in,” the girl told him, crossed arms and flattened lips. Tattered shirt, ripped skirt. One of humanity’s last, ragged breaths, all spit-fired and pig-tailed. “She’s sleeping.”

Jack knelt. He was good with kids. Sometimes. Maybe.

“She’ll want to see me,” he said, meeting the girl’s eyes. Only one tracked him, narrowed protectively. The other swam milkily in its socket, sightless. A war wound. “I promise. I’m an old friend. I’ve come to help. Your father sent me.”

The girl’s crossed arms grew tighter.

“She’s _sleeping_ ,” she said again, like it meant something, like it was important. “She doesn’t like us to come inside. It might not be safe. She hasn’t said the code word.”

 _Code word_. The back of his neck chilled, but he stayed kneeling, held out a hand growing more wrinkled by the year. There wasn’t enough retinol creme in the universe, when you’d been alive as long as he had. He ached now, right down to the bone. Getting older, slowly, by the spin of the universe.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

“Amda.”

“How old are you?”

She tilted her chin up, sightless eye rolling towards him. The other stayed sharp and narrowed, gleaming in the ship’s dim lights. “Eight.”

He would have flinched, but he was too old. _I’m sorry_ , he almost said, but didn’t.

“You’re very brave, Amda,” he said instead. “She’s lucky to have you outside the door. But I’ve come a very long way.”

He fished the symbol out of a coat pocket, tarnished and worn. Passed it into her tiny hands so she could inspect it for herself, the curves and lines of it. An unbroken circle, for a planet long abandoned.

“You’re with the Resistance,” she said, looking up at him.

“Yes.” He tapped her gently on the nose. “Just like you.”

Uncertainty warred on her face.

“I’m here to help,” he promised again, and he’d worn her down, finally, just like her father had said he would. “Really. My name is Captain Jack Harkness.”

He saluted her, settling back on his heels. Raised one eyebrow, pleading.

She breathed out through her nose. “Alright,” she said, conceding very seriously. She turned from him as he straightened, wincing at the creak in his knees, and stood on her toes to reach the keypad beside the door. A cypher-lock. The code would change every nano-second. Too fast, even for the most brilliant of minds to crack.

He swallowed as the door unlocked with a pneumatic hiss, the back of his neck still chilled. Beyond the door, it was only dark. He could hear breathing, slow and steady, as he followed Amda inside, as his eyes adjusted to the dimness. There was a porthole on the cramped room’s far side, the barest sliver of stars beyond illuminating a cot, a cluttered desk. Sparse, impersonal, but there was a dying plant placed in the sill of the porthole. Children’s drawings, taped to the wall.

Amda approached the cot, cautiously. Tugged very gently on the sleeve of the figure sleeping there, breathing deep and even. A woman, or the shape of one. Covered by a ragged coat, not a blanket, boots still barely laced on, like she’d collapsed there.

A sharp inhale, and he caught hazel eyes in the watery light. The barest flint of silver.

“Amda,” she whispered raspily. “Is it morning yet? Is everything alright?”

Amda didn’t budge, waiting. The woman blinked slowly, relaxing as the spectre of immediate danger passed. She hadn’t seen him, yet.

“Ozymandias,” she said deliberately, pressing a finger to the side of her nose, smiling reassuringly.

Amda’s shoulders relaxed. “Ozymandias,” she said, smiling back.

The woman raised herself up, inch by inch, until she was sitting, achingly slow. Washed out and hollow, in the dim light. Hair limp, wrists thin. Jack’s heart grew sick in his chest.

She caught sight of him as she rose. Met his gaze over Amda’s shoulder and paused. Blinked, frowned. Her brow wrinkled with it.

“Who’s this?” she asked lightly, eyes tracking him, even as she held her hands out for Amda to take. The girl took them gladly, and helped her to unsteady feet. She whisked her coat off the cot and wrapped it around herself, eyes fixed on him, still. Warily.

“He says he’s Captain Jack Harkness,” Amda said. “Father sent him. He’s with the Resistance.”

“Did he now?” Settled into her coat, the woman’s shoulders broadened. She finally tore her gaze from him. She smiled down at Amda instead. “He must be important, then.”

Amda shot a wary glance in his direction. Unconvinced. “Maybe,” she said.

The woman kept smiling, eyes warming as Amda lingered, waiting for something. She quirked an eyebrow.

“Hmm,” she pondered. Jack got the impression he was watching a well-loved script play out in front of him. “My pockets might be empty, today.”

Amda laughed. “They’re _never_ empty.”

“Well, they’re bound to be, someday!” The woman made an exaggerated show of fishing around in them, nose wrinkling. Her bony hands emerged, empty, palms flashed. She shrugged. “See?”

A careful pause, as Amda continued to gaze up at her skeptically.

“ _Unless_ ,” she gave in, bending her knees, reaching behind Amda’s ear with aplomb, “aha!”

A marble lay in her open palm, green and shiny in the dim, watery light. Amda laughed again, delighted. She took the marble carefully, holding it up until it caught the light.

“Thank you,” she breathed, staring at it.

“Not as exciting as last week’s banana, I’ll admit,” the woman said, ruffling Amda’s hair, a bit awkwardly. “But you never know. It could be a very special marble. Or possibly,” she muttered, nose wrinkling worriedly, “a micro-explosive, actually, Amda—”

But the girl was already flouncing out of the room, looking more like a child than a soldier for the first time since Jack had laid eyes on her.

“Just—” the woman floundered, nose still wrinkled. “Maybe don’t throw that! Just in case!”

“I won’t,” Amda called over her shoulder, face poking out behind the heavy door, nearly shut. “I’ll be careful.” Her small fingers curled around the side of the door. “Oh. Dr. Malik said he’d come by later. He said to tell you, when you were awake.”

The woman’s mouth soured.

“If that man questions my warp calculations _one more time_ ,” she protested.

“Not about the maths,” Amda said. “With more medicine.”

The woman sharpened further. “He should be saving that for you lot,” she said.

Amda’s nose wrinkled skeptically. Jack wondered if she’d picked the expression up from her friend.

“Tell him,” the woman insisted, crossing her arms. It was a strangely vulnerable look. “Tell him he’s got better things to do than spend his afternoon poking and prodding.” She shuddered, nose wrinkling again. “And that if he goes after my warp calculations again, I’ll go after him with the laser spanner.”

Amda only shook her head, suddenly looking about forty years older than she was. Exasperated. “I’ll be back with tea, later,” she said seriously, closing the door slowly. Her one eye fixed on Jack as she retreated, still wary. “Knock and say the code word when you want out.”

The door sealed shut with a hiss. Clicked and clattered as the cypher-lock engaged. Jack breathed in, struck by the silence between them. The enormity of their distance, though it looked like only a few feet. Break the spell, he thought. Say the name.

“Doctor,” he said, watching her, fragile like a sharp piece of glass in the watery dimness. She smiled, very sadly.

“Jack,” she said, soft, and he took a step in, and then another, and then another. Hands hovering around her arms, trembling. She had an awkward, almost gawky aspect. Held tension in her neck, so tightly strung, almost begging for space, and it was so different from the Doctor he’d known before. Always so desperate to be touched, to be held, even by him. An abomination. He quirked an eyebrow softly, asking. She closed her eyes briefly. The barest nod, appeased.

He kissed her carefully, both hands cradling her face. Pressed his lips to her forehead when he was done and drew her close until her nose pressed into his chest, until her boney arms wrapped hesitantly around him in return. She smelled like ozone and metal, alien smells, sharp up his nose. Familiar. The pounding of that double-heartbeat echoed.

“I’ve been looking for you,” he breathed. He swallowed harshly, pressure building behind his eyes. Relief he hadn’t dared let himself imagine. “ _God_ , Doctor, I’ve been looking for you.”

“You found me,” she mumbled into his chest.

“And I gotta say, this new look—”

“ _Stop it_.” She fumbled her way out of his arms, nose wrinkling in disgust. But she grinned, in the moment after. It lit up her whole face, made her eyes shine. “It is pretty good, though, isn’t it.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, letting a smile draw its way across his own face. But he took her in again, the ragged edges of her, her limp hair and hollowed face. Remembered the click of the cypher-lock engaging and felt the smile drop with his stomach. “But—”

“Wearin’ a bit thin,” she interrupted, sharper. “I know. No need to go on about it, I’m—”

She faltered.

“You’d be tired, too,” she said shakily.

“Doctor,” he said, extending a hand. She ignored it and settled gingerly on the edge of the cot, shoulders inching up to her ears, slowly. Hair falling to hide her face.

He knelt. The floor was cold against his aching knees.

“Catch me up. You got my message,” he said, a bit desperate. “My warning. You didn’t give the Lone Cyberman what it wanted.”

“Of course I didn’t,” she said thinly.

He should have felt relieved. Instead, something cold was settling around his shoulders. He went to grasp her elbows gently, but she tensed and he drew away. Hovering.

“So why,” he whispered, the right question finally settling fitful in his gut, when it had been wandering for weeks, ever since he’d caught wind of her, “is this war still going on? Why are you here?”

Her head moved slowly, hair shifting until her eyes met his. Dark and glassy. And the oddest, barest flint of—

“When I didn’t give it what it wanted,” she breathed, “its ship tore a hole through reality. Decimated Lake Geneva, left a giant crater they’re still trying to puzzle out. Killed my friends. And Percy Shelley.” She exhaled, almost laughing. It was a bitter sound. “A man so subtly influential that his early death nearly unravelled the 20th century. Left quite a mess. I did my best to pick it up, but—but there’s only so much one Time Lord can do. Everything tangled up like that, it’s textbook anarchy, until it isn’t. And out of the ashes of all that chaos,” she whispered, gaze sharp. “The Cybermen, centuries early. Humans are so terribly predictable.” She swallowed. “But it wasn’t their fault, not really. I had to fix what I broke.”

“Doc.” His voice cracked. He thought of her ragged band of friends, such an eclectic collection of people, brave and fast and funny—

Felt his stomach swoop. Guilt, settling in the cracks.

“So I came here,” she said softly. “Into the heart of the war, once upon a time. Inserted myself into the resistance. That was a few centuries ago, now. I think. Maybe.” She blinked, scattered. Flattened her lips into a wince, a hand raising jerkily to press into the side of her head. “Almost won. You’re just in time. There’s one last cyber stronghold, before we’re free of them. One last battle.”

Her hand fell limply into her lap.

“Then I can rest,” she said mildly.

“I never meant,” he tried, horrified, inadequate. Never living up, always failing, always getting it all wrong— “I’ve been trying to find you, I was working with—but then I got all caught up in—”

Flung from one disaster to the next, constantly, across time, across space. Once, she would have found it relatable, maybe, but now—he swallowed, feeling ill.

“Don’t,” she told him. Hands fiddling in her lap, like she was thinking about reaching for him, but couldn’t quite make herself do it. “It was my choice to make. You were only trying to do the right thing.”

She faltered again, nearly flinching. Head jerking. Her hands in her lap twisted together, grip tightening, white.

He faltered himself, one last question lingering sick in his throat. “Doctor,” he said. She wasn’t looking at him again, jaw tense. “The asset we sent back. The cyberium. Where—?”

She smiled again, but it wasn’t especially nice. Drew her head back to look at him, painfully. Tapped a jaunty finger to the side of her skull, once, twice.

He closed his eyes. “Oh, Doc,” he breathed.

“As parasitic artificial intelligences go, I’ve had worse,” she said, and when he opened his eyes again, her nose was scrunched contemplatively. “And it’s brilliant, in its way. Between my brain—also brilliant, if you don’t mind me sayin’—and all the strategy it contains, how they plan, how they _think_ , what they know. It’s given us the edge, over centuries. It’s what’s gonna help us win.”

“There’s a lock on that door that would take two billion years to break manually,” he whispered.

“Yes, well.” The line of her mouth sharpened. “I didn’t say we always get along. Bit of a—time-share situation. It’s a lousy tenant. Never pays rent on time. Got loads of opinions that don’t always mesh with the vibes we’ve got going here.” She swallowed sickly. “Also it’s sort of slowly eatin’ my brains, but it’s been doing that for centuries, I’m almost used to it now.”

There was pressure behind his eyes again. Guilt, hot and sick. “And the code word?”

She smiled, bitterly. “It’s a piece of cyber intelligence. Poetry’s a bit beyond it.” She breathed out harshly. “But you should—I think you should—”

“Doctor, I came to help you,” he insisted, sensing where she was going. “I’ve been gone long enough. This thing—” He shook his wrist angrily, mournfully, the vortex manipulator clattering with the movement. Held together with string and shoelaces and hope.

“I know,” she panted. “I know, but I—” Her lips twisted again, neck following the movement, knuckles white. “I’m tired,” she said, meeting his gaze, and her eyes glinted with silver. Feverish. “You really—really shouldn’t have woken me. Come back later.”

“I’m not leaving you here,” he said.

“I just need a kip,” she breathed, harsh in her chest. “They’ll treat you well, they’re good people, they’ll explain everything. Get Amda to show you to the galley.”

“They lock you in here.” His hands hovered by her arms, fruitlessly. “They just—they just leave you—?”

“It’s by necessity, believe me,” she shuddered. “Jack, I really—”

“I’m not leaving,” he said.

She shuddered again, neck twisting, and when her eyes met his again they were flat. Cold. Just like that.

“She can’t even bear the smell of you,” she whispered sharply, grinning. “She sensed you the minute you stepped foot on this ship, because you’re _revolting_ —ah!” Her neck snapped the other way. She swallowed, frowning painfully. “Don’t listen to it,” she strained. “It’s lying and it likes a bit of drama, but it’s—”

She rolled her neck, gaze flat again.

“It’s winning,” she said, standing. Towering, just for a moment, before Jack skidded to his feet, backed away warily. She closed the gap with none of the Doctor’s frailty, head tilted up at him until they were eye to eye. He could smell her breath on his face. “And it’s not lying. She finds you disgusting, but then again—she’s always been a bit of a hypocrite.” Those teeth flashed again, macabre. “Shall I tell you why? It’s terribly funny.” She shuddered again. Silver flashed in her eyes. “The poem, Jack,” she breathed, fast, panicked. “It never existed, but it’s there in your mind, you’re from a slightly different time stream, if you can just—”

Her lips twisted into a snarl.

“ _Shut up_ ,” she hissed, eyes flicking sideways. “Mummy’s talking.”

“I can’t say I’ve never imagined anything like this,” Jack breathed, fear pounding at the base of his throat. “But I gotta say, this isn’t _quite_ how I—”

She grinned again, laughing breathlessly.

“You’re funny,” she said. “I think I like funny. _She’s_ terribly boring, see.” A finger traced the line of his cheek. Her teeth glinted in the dull light. “But this body’s failing, along with its mind.” The grin sharpened. “Her head’s all in pieces, and I can see everything inside. You’re next in line,” she said lightly, eyebrows raising, tongue teasing behind her teeth. “A contingency. She hates you, you know. You ruined her life, you sent her house of cards toppling. Why else do you think she arranged for you to notice her, finally?” She took a step back, hands pinwheeling behind her, appraising. Her brow wrinkled in faux consideration. “Your whole existence is wrong, but at least you’re durable,” she muttered. “Funny _and_ durable. I think you’ll do just fine.”

Enough of this. His heart was sunk into his chest, guilt and old hurts mingling. Resignation. Or maybe it was penance, of a sort.

“The hand that mocked them,” he said quietly, firmly, dredging up words from the depths of his long, long memory. “And the heart that fed—”

Her lips twitched.

“Stop it,” she said.

“And on the pedestal,” he continued, taking a step forward, hands hovering, “these words appear: My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings—”

“Shut up,” she demanded, shuddering, “you worthless, revolting sack of flesh, you putrid, pathetic _pustule_ , I’m going to tear out your brain and make a palace, you rotting, rancid, _repulsive_ —”

“Look on my Works,” he finished, catching her against his chest as her knees buckled, “ye Mighty, and despair.”

For a long moment, she only shook against him, breaths heaving.

“Sorry,” she whispered into his ribs. Shaking under his careful grasp. The two of them were barely upright. “Sorry, sorry. The first few years, it wasn’t so bad, just facts and strategy and knowledge and—and power. But it was quiet. Then, it acquired a _personality_.” She shuddered. “A rude one. Don’t listen.”

“I never do.” He knew it all already, anyway. His hand palmed the back of her head, gentle. “That poem—”

“Off-switch. Failsafe. Mostly works. Programmed in a few centuries ago, when it started gettin’ ideas.”

“Programmed?” He lowered them both to the ground with a muffled groan, back twinging. Helped her lean against the wall, legs sprawled in front of her, the laces of her boots helplessly untied. “Doctor, these people—”

“They’re good people,” she reiterated, slumped against the wall like a rag doll. His stomach crawled with guilt, unease.

“You’re a prisoner here.”

“No,” she said firmly. Her breaths were still halting, unsteady, like she’d just climbed a flight of stairs. “It’s all under my instructions, for their own protection.”

He didn’t buy it, but after so many years, he still knew when to back off. “Is it true?” He moved on reluctantly. “What it said.”

“It’s a liar.”

“But was what it said true?”

Her lips pressed together. Her hair hung limply in her face, grown out, lifeless.

“Doc,” he said quietly. “Why am I here?”

She didn’t answer. “I—” she tried, but the rest of it was mumbled, swallowed back. She shuddered again, blinking. Jaw tight. “I can’t—” Her shoulders set, irritated. “Ugh,” she said, tilting. “Sorry. Take five.”

Another mumbled apology left her lips and she went limp, eyes slipping closed. Just like that. He darted a panicked arm out to keep her from pitching forward, hands going to her pulse, her mouth, but she was only asleep. Suddenly, deeply. Heart hammering up his throat, he stilled. He closed his eyes, just for a moment. Swallowed back curses in about fifteen different alien languages. Guilt curdled in his stomach, a slow boil. Resentment that he did his best to smother. No answers, as usual, because he didn’t deserve them, he was never worthy, always worthless, always the last to know and the first to be left behind—

Old news. And not always right. Besides, he could take it. For her, he could always take it. Painstakingly—but not quietly, if only because he was pretty sure nothing short of an earthquake would wake her, now—he dragged himself to his feet. The cot wasn’t exactly the lap of luxury, but it was a sight better than the cold, hard floor. He hoisted her up underneath the armpits and scooped her up, bridal style, and it was almost enough to make him laugh, if only because she’d likely be horrified by the implications. But she was far too light, all sharp edges and angles. Her head lolled unnervingly, and her clothes were worn through and patched, and he was reminded, again, of a rag doll. It wasn’t very funny.

He stumbled back over to the cot and laid her down, sat so her head could rest on his thigh. Her breaths were deep and slow and even. Familiar and not. The Doctor he’d known had rarely rested—and never where people could see, not if he could help it.

He thought fleetingly, painfully, of the first one he’d met, big ears, leather jacket. The nightmares he’d caught the tail-end of once or twice, all sharp gasps and jagged edges. He wondered if she dreamed anymore. Her eyelids moved, but this sort of sleep looked like it had hooks and claws, dug in fast.

He put his hand on her head. Rubbed a thumb in circles that he hoped were comforting. Right now, it was all he could do.

“I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP so I was gripped by this concept weeks ago but I wanted to see how the finale shook out and I'm so glad I did, because in the end I was able to spice it up with some Canon (i mean, such as it ever is, we don't hold much stock in Proper Canon up in these here parts personally, doctor who is chaos and that's the way i LIKE it), I hope,,,,,,,we'll see lmao, but ANYWAY I love Captain Jack and I thought it was about time I threw him into something, so this,,,Is That. 
> 
> I'm thinking it probably won't be too long, maybe three chapters? But we'll see where it takes me rip (yes it's that kind of fic, old habits die hard, but I'm invested in this premise so don't get too worried lmao, should update soon!). This first bit is self-indulgent and maybe doesn't tell you too much but it's my birthday I can do what I want
> 
> (And the poetry, of course, belongs to Percy Shelley.)
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed, thank you so much for reading, and I'd love to know what you thought!


	2. ii.

He was always just catching her coat tails, a step behind, a day too late. A century too late. He’d meant to do better, this time. He’d tried, anyway. But still—

“I said I’d be here when you needed me,” he whispered, and it was the start of a question he didn’t want the answer to. He swallowed the rest of it back carefully and waited, listening to her breathe.

He waited for so long that eventually he lost track of the time. It was happening to him more and more lately. The Doctor would know, he thought absently, dozing. She always knew exactly how much time had passed, but humans like him had no such recourse, especially as they got older. Time passed in fits and starts, like an uncooperative faucet, not drips from a tap. He knew that, he thought, gazing down at his hands, better than most. He’d had centuries and centuries to learn.

While he waited, she slept like the dead. Even when the clatter of the cypher-lock finally jolted him out of his doze, she didn’t stir. The door wheezed as it opened.

“Ozymandias,” Jack said to the figure silhouetted in the doorway, curious.

“Ozymandias,” the figure said gently, stepping out of the glare of the light into the dimness of the cell. The man who approached him warily, a metal tray in hand, was tall, dark and handsome. Too young for him, but that was the start of a joke that wasn’t funny anymore. Spectacles perched on the end of his nose, framed by dark, curly hair that had never seen a brush. Five o’clock shadow graced his jaw. His sweater was patched over and over, worn through and well-loved.

Jack didn’t move. He didn’t want to disturb her.

“You must be Dr. Malik,” he said quietly.

“Yes,” Dr. Malik said, not volunteering a first name, though Jack would have liked one. He set the tray down on the cot. “And you’re our mysterious visitor.”

Jack flashed a smile, resisting the urge to wink.

“Well, I try,” he said. Despite his best efforts, the smile slid off his face. “I’ve come a long way.”

Dr. Malik only looked at him, stone-faced. A hard man to read, Jack thought. Once upon a time, he would have enjoyed the challenge. Here, at the edge of the galaxy, a few centuries later than he cared to be, he wasn’t sure it would be worth the effort.

“She knows you,” Dr. Malik said, finally. A question hidden in a statement. These scientist types, they were never just straightforward.

“We go way back,” was all he volunteered. “She’s an old friend.”

“Old.” Dr. Malik crossed his arms, eyes trailing to the Doctor’s face. Something might have softened there, if Jack was looking for it. These people, he thought, feeling his heart ache grudgingly. They genuinely cared for her. “How old?” he asked, and it was another question wrapped in a question. How much had she told them, really? Or had she been a part of their lives for so long that they left all those pieces of her unquestioned?

“Older than you can imagine,” he said, stroking her hair. He had a question of his own, but he still didn’t want an answer. “Dr. Malik.”

If Dr. Malik suspected what it was, he didn’t show it. He stayed stone-faced. “Yes?”

“She’s dying,” Jack said.

A pause.

“Yes,” Dr. Malik admitted.

Jack closed his eyes, lips twisting. _Contingency_.

“Dammit,” he whispered.

“Everything is coming to a close. She said she had a plan.” The other man’s voice had softened. “Are you the plan?”

Jack swallowed. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I usually am.” _The last to know_ , something bitter whispered. Even though he would have happily been the first to volunteer. His hand stilled, caught gently in her hair. Her last resort, always.

Dr. Malik perched on the edge of the cot, looking worn. The people on this ship were ragged and thin, all of them. The dregs of humanity. But there were hundreds of them, he thought, weary hope burrowing down into the pit of his stomach, despite it all. Hundreds of people who wouldn’t be alive, otherwise, and that had to count for something. That had to _mean_ something.

“I recognize your face,” Dr. Malik said quietly. “From the holo-records.”

Jack said nothing, waiting.

“You were part of the original resistance. The alliance.”

“I contract out,” Jack admitted. “I’m a traveller. Not from around these parts, but sometimes I end up in the right place at the right time. Try to do a little good.” He glanced down at the Doctor. “I learned from the best.”

He swallowed.

“I said I’d be here when she needed me. Think I got here a little too late.”

Dr. Malik raised a hand to fiddle with his spectacles. “Or just in time,” he said gently, avoiding Jack’s gaze. “We’re nearing the final stronghold, now.”

The Doctor roused at his words. Her head shifted at his thigh.

“Yusuf,” she mumbled, patting Jack’s knee absently, “are we there already?”

“No,” he said fondly, though he swallowed back what might have been a grimace, in the lowlight. “You still need to calculate the final jump, remember?”

“Oh, yeah,” she sighed, struggling upright. Jack caught the small of her back before she could topple sideways. “I should have built you lot a supercomputer,” she complained.

“I could always do the calculations myself.”

“What, so you can miss a decimal and strand us the next quadrant over?”

“ _One time_.”

The Doctor smiled fondly. “Not my fault you can’t think in five dimensions.”

“Not my fault we’re working with kit that’s decades out of date,” Dr. Malik said dryly. “Your improvements—”

“—are the only reason the lot of us are still floating in space instead of planet-bound in a pile of scrap metal,” the Doctor protested, nose wrinkling. “You could show a little respect.”

“Oh, I have plenty of respect for my elders,” he said, straight-faced, as the Doctor’s nose wrinkled further.

“Rude.” She glanced at Jack, eyebrows raised. “See how rude? Almost as rude as you. You’ve met?”

“Oh, yes,” Jack said, appreciatively.

She swatted him. “ _Stop it_.”

“Stop what?”

Dr. Malik fiddled with his spectacles again, flushing, and cleared his throat.

“We’re almost at the junction,” he said pointedly. The Doctor sobered.

“Right,” she said, making to stand. “Best get a shift on. Jack, Yusuf can catch you up.” Her hands braced against the cot. Jack caught a flicker of silver dart behind her eyes. “Have you met Alis yet? She’s in charge of supplies. Sort of. She’ll give you what you need.”

“Doctor,” Dr. Malik said, tiredly.

“Well, she’ll give you what she _thinks_ you need.”

“Doctor,” he said again.

Her jaw set.

Dr. Malik was persistent. Jack had to give him that. The dimness of the cell did nothing to hide the bags under his eyes, but he held firm.

“I’m not here about the jump.” His hands moved to the tray. “You know that. I—”

“You’re not going to learn anything you don’t already know,” the Doctor said thinly, standing to waver on unsteady feet. “You’re not going to fix anything you haven’t already tried to fix, Yusuf. It’s the same thing every week.”

“Doctor,” Dr. Malik said, gently. “Yusuf was my father.”

The Doctor blinked.

“Oh,” she said quietly. She pressed her lips together, embarrassed. One hand spasmed into a fist at her side. “Sorry. Um—”

“Kamil,” he said, still gentle. He gestured again to his metal tray, pressed his glasses up his nose. “It’s alright. Can I—?”

She sat, after a moment, looking unhappy about it. Jack rose from the cot, pretending like he hadn’t seen, hadn’t heard. He moved to the room’s tiny porthole, turning his back as Dr. Malik— _Kamil_ , and didn’t his sad, gentle face make more sense, now?—fished a rusty-looking penlight from the pocket of his jumper. It didn’t matter to him, but he knew it mattered to her.

Plausible deniability, he thought, was what you always tried to give your friends. He wasn’t alarmed by frailty. He’d seen the Doctor in worse straits than this, in worse hands than this. But it was about the pretending, he thought tiredly, stopping to admire the feeble plant nestled in the sill of the porthole. The leaves were straining towards the starlight. It was about the things they spoke around.

He knew why he was here.He didn’t need to _see_ it.

He couldn’t help but listen, though. He counted stars and hunted for constellations while the Doctor rambled off a hundred digits of pi, recited Julius Caesar, and then stumbled over her own name. She knew the stars out the porthole without hesitation, but she didn’t know what year it was. She tried to count backwards from twenty, and failed.

“Can I calculate the jump, now?” she pleaded, frustration simmering underneath. A hint of something steelier, and it raised the hairs on the back of his neck. “And will you _please_ get that thing out of my face?”

When Jack turned, finally, Kamil’s jaw was set unhappily and the Doctor’s fingers were white against the cot. The penlight switched off. Kamil tucked it back into a pocket.

“I’m not calculating it backwards now, am I?” she said tersely, when he didn’t say anything. “It doesn’t matter, anyway. None of it does. We’re nearly there.”

Kamil glanced away. A hand raised to his spectacles.

“Take the pills anyway,” he said. Speaking around. “Please?”

“You’re going to need everything you’ve got when this is all over,” she said grimly. “I’ve got a handle on it, Yusuf.”

Kamil swallowed.

“If it’s going to be over at all, we need _you_ ,” he countered gently. “Please. I’ll send for Amda,” he threatened, and by the way the Doctor’s nose wrinkled, Jack knew the threat was very real.

“Ugh. Fine,” she relented. She held out a palm, reluctantly, and swallowed the three pills Kamil dropped into the centre dry, without flinching. “Banana,” she muttered, nose wrinkling further in the aftermath. “Why is it always banana?”

“You like banana,” Kamil reminded her, rising to his feet. He offered her a hand, which she ignored. She ignored Jack’s, too, stood unsteadily, determinedly. Her coat trailed on the cot, threadbare.

“I like banana when it tastes like _banana_ ,” she protested, moving towards the door. “That doesn’t taste like banana. That tastes like what someone who’s never tasted a banana _thinks_ banana tastes like.”

Kamil banged on the cell door three times. “Ozymandias,” he said clearly, into the small ventilation hole. “None of us _have_ ever tasted a real banana,” he said. “Except for Amda, last week. Thanks to your pockets.”

“You will,” she said, smiling as the door squealed open. “There’s seed banks in deep storage,” she told Jack, as they trailed behind Kamil, nodding to the sentry outside the door. The light outside the cell was bright. It threw the Doctor into harsh relief, but she seemed unbothered by it. Jack watched the odd bit of silver glint across her eyes, like sunlight on a pond, and tried not to shudder. “Ready to go, on any level 5 planet with the right soil conditions. Harvested them myself, from the TARDIS arboretum.”

Jack blinked. “The TARDIS is here?”

“Of course!” She glanced at him, eyebrows raising. “Where else would it be?”

Jack shoved his hands in the pocket of his coat, frowning. “I guess I figured if you weren’t in it, it was because you didn’t have it.”

“I lived in it for a while,” she said. “At the start. But it’s—” She swallowed, twisting her neck with a grimace. “It wasn’t safe. It’s better out here. Less tempting.”

 _More lonely_ , she didn’t say, but he saw it in the unhappy curve of her mouth.

“Besides,” she went on, bouncing ahead, arms swinging. “Nice to be part of the action, isn’t it?”

She listed sideways and he righted her without a second thought.

“Yeah,” he agreed, hand lingering on her shoulder. She didn’t protest. “It is.”

—

The bridge of the _Shelley_ was as ramshackle as the rest of it. Jack knelt to admire the cobbled-together comms system. To his left, cables as thick as his leg ran up from the engine room underneath, duct-taped to the controls for the warp drive. Steam rose from the floor grates. There was a mid-sized porthole just above him labelled ‘emergency visual interface’. A scavenged foot pedal just in front of him, covered in tape. ‘Emergency brake’ was scribbled on it in bright red ink. ‘No, really, EMERGENCY brake’, just below. Cables and wires and buttons as far as the eye could see, cobbled together from a thousand different eras and planets. It was all a work of genius— _insane_ genius.

“Wouldn’t touch that,” the Doctor recommended as he poked around, snatching his wrist in her boney grasp. She dragged him upright. “Live current. Nasty shock, even for you.”

“Speaking from experience?” he wondered, grinning. She grinned back in answer.

“This equipment is a century or two out of date,” he said, “running like equipment that’s a century or two to come.”

Her grin broadened. “It’s a bit good, isn’t it.”

“Good?” He shook his head. “Doctor, it’s brilliant.”

“You’re not the one who has to _drive_ the bloody thing,” a voice interjected. “Don’t let it get to her head. Who is this guy, anyway?”

“Captain Jack Harkness,” he said, turning. A ragged, middle-aged woman eyed him shrewdly from a distressed leather seat, legs crossed in front of her so he could see the weathered soles of her boots. Intricate braids flooded down her back, red and purple thread woven through. “And who might you be?”

“ _Stop it_ ,” the Doctor told him, wandering over to the warp drive controls.

“Maza Keene,” she said, uncrossing her legs. The glance she shot Jack’s way was unimpressed. “Pilot. Doctor, seriously, who is this guy?”

“Here to help,” the Doctor said mildly, absorbed by whatever it was she was looking at. Her fingers began to fly across a rusted-out touchpad. “Now shut up, I’m using my brain as a supercomputer.”

“Yeah, what’s left of it.”

“ _Oi_. Maths. Shut up.”

Maza shook her head, braids flying. She gestured to herself again. “Maza.” Her head tilted to the man behind her, buried in cables. “Clarke. He’s engineering, when he isn’t being a nuisance.”

“Oi,” he protested, glancing up from his cables. The knitted cap on his head nearly fell off with the motion, and he scrambled for it.

“Comms is Stephy,” and a red-head beamed over at him, “and Kamil does the navigation, when he isn’t busy trying to keep us all alive.”

“The Doctor does most of it,” he protested, hands flying into his pockets. “The Doctor does most of everything, honestly.”

“Except pilot.”

Everyone murmured in faint agreement, and faint disgruntlement. Jack smiled. He knew a story when he wasn’t hearing one.

“Maths,” the Doctor muttered irritably, but didn’t look away from the screen.

“The warp drive can go a few hundred thousand klicks at a go,” Maza said. “Kamil and the Doctor mapped the entire quadrant of this galaxy so we could jump easier.”

Jack put his hand against the gently thrumming wall. “It’s got the same functionality as a cyber-ship,” he marvelled.

“Better.” The word was sharp on Maza’s tongue. “ _Faster_.”

The wall kept humming under Jack’s fingertips. He swallowed, eyeing the Doctor, still hunched over the warp drive, her fingers white against the sides of the screen. Another question lingered sour in his gut.

“Well, it’s kept us ahead, anyway,” Clarke murmured. He adjusted his hat. “Mostly.”

“There’s at least one more jump left in her,” Kamil said quietly. He turned to the entrance to the bridge, at the sound of light footsteps. Amda leaned in, clinging to the edge of the frame.

“Father authorized the jump, when it’s ready,” she said. Her singular eye swung Jack’s way, glistening in the cool light. Still wary of him, and he couldn’t blame her. He wouldn’t have wanted a stranger intruding on what might have been the end of it all, either. “Everyone’s below.”

That was alright. He wasn’t here to be everyone’s favourite uncle. He was only here to help.

“ _Maths_ ,” the Doctor grumbled, but finally seemed to register just who was behind her. “Oh, Amda is that you?” She lifted her gaze from the warp drive’s screen, twisting over her shoulder to smile. “Nearly there,” she said. “Best buckle in. Your father, too.”

“He doesn’t like seatbelts,” Amda said, which gave Jack the impression that he and the Doctor were probably kindred spirits. “But I’ll try. Good luck,” she said solemnly, and disappeared from the frame in a blink.

“Well?” Maza turned to the Doctor, in her wake. “How close is nearly?”

“Good news,” the Doctor said, eyebrows raising optimistically. “Everything’s programmed in. Bad news,” and Jack caught a quicksilver flash behind her eyes, in her teeth, as she crumpled to her knees—

“I think someone else is gonna have to press the button,” she breathed, “‘cos the Cyberium seems to have got my limbs in the divorce.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hmmmmmb Definitely Didn't Forget That I Was Writing This but in my defense i started writing it right before the world went to shit so I have, like, some rights maybe?
> 
> The downside is that I don't entirely remember where I was going with it, but you know what, we're all just here to enjoy the ride, INCLUDING ME. On that note I'd like to thank the academy and also Past Me for keeping exactly zero notes about this fic and what exactly I thought I was doing with it. Please accept whatever it turns into with the knowledge that I Am Also Suffering.
> 
> anyway, that being said, brain said Captain Jack Time and who am I to argue? I hope you're all safe and well. Thank you very much for reading, and I'd love to know what you thought!


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